Photo by Gareth Jones |
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This member of the
Begoniaceae family was almost given this name by Eduard
August von Regel in 1852. It is found
in Brazil, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Southern Mexico, growing in a
rather rich soil with
some to plenty of water and little to some sun. The swollen
stems can grow to five
centimetres in diameter, the entire plant to 60 0r even 100 centimetres in
height. The
flowers are pale pink.
It was originally published under the spelling "caroliniaefolia".
*) I was puzzled by the
different way to spell the name, and Kanchi N. Gandhi from IPNI was
kind enough to explain:
In general, the published epithet “caroliniaefolia” is
corrected to “caroliniifolia” (as in Tropicos). Such a
correction implies that the first term was derived from the genus
name “Carolinia”, which does not exist. But, although the
etymology is not mentioned within the protologue, it seems obvious
from the plate 25 that the specific epithet is based on the generic
name Carolinea L. In such cases, the Code Art. 60.8 and Rec.
60G would appear to mandate correction of “caroliniaefolia”
to carolineifolia. |
